Why So Serious?

The Beginning

I don't know where to begin, so I will just start at the beginning of my long and tragic story.  My name is, well was, Jack Napier.  I don't know how old I am, I just know I've existed for a while.  This is my final story, or the story of the last piece of an insane man.  He's locked me away for a while now, and I fear as time goes on, I will fade away from memory.  I wasn't always like this, before my sad attempt to end my cruel reality that is life.

    My mother was a prostitute, and my father was a sad drunkard who wasted our precious savings to drown what was left of his life.  I remember the beatings me and my mother got, I would always look at other children and wonder why they didn't look the same as me, bruised and broken.  My father soon became even more violent and unpredictable over the years that spanned.  The beatings continued, but I will always remember that night....

    I walked through the dark, dank alley that led to my family's home.  I don't remember the street name, nor do I want to go back there and remember.  My father had just come home and my mother was crying hunched underneath the glint of the carving knife.  His booming voice was one of the first things I heard as I stepped closer.  The acute fear I felt of that man then was vast and unimaginable, terrifying me to my core.  At that moment, I selfishly revered in the fact he was looming over her and not me.  I took another step and the floor groaned, my eyes widened and my father smiled, turning around slowly.  "Hi there son, I see you're home."  I gulped as he held the old knife in front of him.  The blade was wickedly sharp looking in the dim lights of our poverty stricken home.  My mother then decided to run and lock herself in their bedroom, leaving me alone with him.  "Son, you look scared, Why don't you come give your loving father a hug?"  I began taking steps back, fear of what he might do ebbed into my cold limbs.  My father then lunged and grabbed a hold of my arm.  I yelled out in pain and he pinned me down on the floor.  "Oh son, why so serious?" was all I heard as he brought the knife to my face, carving upwards to form a permanent smile on my face. I blacked out and fell into unconsciousness.

    As I wish this was the last of the horrible things that happened to me, but funny that it isn't.  I think I was destined to become a morbid comical mess of emotions and horrible family history.  Maybe it is this satisfaction from the horrible things I do that makes me a pawn in life's game of never ending chess.  Anyways, this wasn't the thing that made me the crazed sliver of a man I am now.  After my father murdered my mother and committed suicide, I became a child of the system, weaving in and out of various foster homes. 

    I think I was in my late twenties when I met her, and she became the beautiful angel in my dark and lonely world. She seemed to make me feel like more of a person.  We were happy  and made for each other so I raised enough money and asked her to marry me.  About six months after we got married, she announced she was pregnant.  While we were loving, capable people, we lacked the funds to raise a child in our current financial situation.

I began to panic, What would we do with the child?  I couldn't let him/her be exposed to what I had been to as a child.  That is when I made my plans to do whatever it took to give them a happy life. 

I talked to everyone about any job that would pay even a little more than what I was earning now.  I was desperate and would resort to anything.  Then, as if a miracle had appeared they came and offered to let me work with them.  It was run through a mob family so I knew they had the money I needed.  They convinced me to become The Red Hood, to help control the smaller mob families.  I did horrible and terrible things for the money I brought home to my pregnant wife.  It began to become a routine; each day working for them, but I began to want out.  A few months after, they offered me just that and half the money we would collect because I was currently the second in charge of the mob. 

The day came when we were supposed to rob the warehouse, we were all tense from  having slept very little.  We gathered our weapons and hid them amongst our clothes to conceal them from view of any passerby.  My boss told me to head towards the upper level so I could break into the second story office for some documents.  I was in when I heard their screams of pain.  The sound of gunfire broke through the previously silent building.  Terrified, I grabbed the papers and fled down and slightly away from the chaos.  When the quiet hit me again, I realized I was the only one alive left.  I saw the bodies of all the I knew as I continued to creep away.  Oh god there was blood all over the floor and all the people I had grown accustomed to were now dead.  The police then caught sight of me and chased me towards the back.  I couldn't be caught now, my wife needed this money.  I stopped behind a crate on a railing above the toxic waste pit in the back, there was nowhere to run to now.  " Drop your weapons Napier, we know who you are, come out with your arms up" I sat there and pointed my gun around the box, letting off a few shots to let them know I wasn't going down without a fight.  I needed this money and I was freaking out. "Please let me go" I cried out " I need this money for my wife".  It grew quiet and I slid my weapon to them in hopes it would help them to trust me.  I raised my hands and came from behind the box stepping forward a bit.  Chief Gordon was half in the police car talking to someone with a grim look on his face.  He slid out and began to talk " Napier there has been an accident, your wife is dead, and she was admitted into the ER about a half an hour ago".  He let these words settle in, Dead? How could she be? I had seen her.  I began to break down, the light in my world had just disappeared, she was the only reason I wanted to exist.  I stepped back, tears flowing down my cheeks.  Gordon stepped forward as if realizing what I wanted to do "Now, come with us Napier, it's gonna be okay."  However, I knew it wasn't, so in a last second decision I threw myself over the railing plummeting to what I hoped to be my death. 

Its funny how a simple thing like falling to your death can put everything you've been through into perspective.  It makes everything slow down and every move as you fall is dramatic.  It can change a person, whether for the better or for the worse.  Unfortunately what I was hoping would befall me did, in fact, not happen.  The waste transformed me into something else, that which I am now. It pulled painfully at my face and made it white, then it reddened my scars and twisted my mind.  So, in the end, that is now, I never would have expected something like this to happen to me. I am fading away quicker now, and the man that is me only has one question to ask you my dear reader, Why So Serious?

Note~ Sorry for the short bit I put out, but if you like it please comment because this is my first story but thank you For taking the time to read it!!:)